Nowadays a Nobel Peace Prize is no guarantee that you are going to get someone worthy of the honor. To wit, Henry Kissinger and Barack Obama, warmongers responsible for the loss of thousands of lives. However, Argentine human rights activist, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, is the real deal. He won the Nobel for Peace in 1980 for his struggles against the US supported Argentine military dictatorship. He recently commented in response to Obama’s (absurdly) declaring Venezuela a security threat to the United States. My translation:

“The only danger for the people of the United States are in the United States. They are the corporate, military and financial lobbies who consider that a region without war and with resources they cannot control is a danger for their economic interests and profoundly antidemocratic power.”

The simple truth in a single paragraph. Walt Kelly’s classic Pogo comes to mind: we have seen the enemy and he is us.

Roger’s note: Saudi Arabian government, not exactly a democracy but great friend and ally of the United States and long standing closeness to the Bush family. Evidence coming out that they financed the 9/11 attack, which we know was carried out largely by Saudis. With friends like that …

While the fate of jailed Saudi blogger and human rights activist Raif Badawi remains unclear – officials have twice postponed the next round of a 1,000-lash punishment advocates deem a death sentence dragged out over 20 weeks – the movement to free him escalates. Along with global protests and campaigns, a group of U.S. intellectuals have offered to take his lashes and two Norwegian politicians have nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize as “a beacon of light.”

Badawi was publicly flogged with 50 lashes on January 9 in Jiddah, the start of a 10-year, 1,000-lash sentence for “insulting” Islam with his website Free Saudi Liberals. Badawi’s lawyer was also sentenced to 15 years in prison. Last week, his scheduled flogging was postponed for the third time, reportedly for health reasons. His wife, who with their three children has been granted political asylum in Quebec, says his health continues to deteriorate. The ongoing movement to free him has included protests in Europe and Canada, social media campaigns by Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, and an open letter from 18 international Nobel laureates to Saudi academics urging them to condemn Badawi’s punishment and the repression it represents. Last week, the new Saudi regime released a royal decree offering pardons to some prisoners convicted of “public rights” charges – pardons that usually require giving up the right to free expression – but it’s unclear if Badawi was among them. And this week his case, which had been referred to the Supreme Court in December, got sent back again to the Court of Appeals.

Amidst the legal maneuvering, two members of the Norwegian Parliament, Snorre Valen and Karin Andersen, have nominated both Badawi and his attorney Waleed Abu al-Khair for the Nobel Peace Prize, arguing their longtime “commitment (to) challenging the suppression of free thought, speech and expression in a peaceful manner… should be recognized and embraced…as a beacon of light for those who crave more liberties in one of the last functioning theocracies in the modern world. Their announcement in a Change.org petition quickly garnering several thousand signatures.

Badawi also received a dramatic expression of support from seven American intellectuals, academics and activists, including Jews and Muslims, who are members of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. In an open letter to the Saudi ambassador in Washington, DC, they sorrowfully urged Saudi officials to “put a halt to this grave injustice.” But “if your government will not remit the punishment of Raif Badawi,” they said, “we respectfully ask that you permit each of us to take 100 of the lashes that would be given to him.” They were offering “to present ourselves,” they add, because “compassion, a virtue honored in Islam as well as in Christianity, Judaism, and other faiths, is defined as ‘suffering with another.’ We are persons of different faiths, yet we are united in a sense of obligation to condemn and resist injustice and to suffer with its victims.” One member of the group stressed he only signed the letter once he felt “genuinely committed” to going through with taking the lashes, meaning he had to ponder “what it means to sacrifice for others in the fight for justice…What does it mean to say, ‘Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’”?

ROGER’S NOTE: I TURN OVER MY “ROGER’S NOTE” SPACE TODAY TO “TUTTLE,” WHO COMMENTED ON THIS ARTICLE IN COMMONDREAMS.ORG:

President Obama in conversation with Malala in the Oval Office

“Well Malala, it goes like this. I am the Ruling Elite and you are not. Your life is yet just another mere commodity to be used as fodder to heat the machine that devours the planet and the rest of your class. Posing with you here today is like posing with the Turkey I pardon every year when the American people celebrate the genocide carried out on the original peoples that inhabited this country. These people are now just an embarrassment and a nuisance. Which brings me back to you and your people. You see Malala your life is worthless to me and my investors. These photo-ops are just to keep the illusion going that we care. And you are now a willing participant in that fairytale. If you threaten me or my class or their ability to make a profit… I have a list… Where is that list?…Malia, darling could hand your father that piece of paper… thank you. See Malala, I have the right to Kill anyone in the ENTIRE world. ANYONE. yes, even U.S. citizens… see here, I killed a young man no more than a couple years older than you. And that was because of who his father was! hahaha! Imagine! Now Imagine, if you, Malala truly stood up and spoke out against me and my friends. So just to let you know, I will drone anyone anywhere I feel like because that’s just apart of my job as Ruler of the free world. Now smile for the camera. Say Freedom!”

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughter Malia meet with Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban a year ago, in the Oval Office, Oct. 11, 2013. PETE SOUZA — Official White House photo

Malala Yousafzai, the sixteen-year-old Pakistani girl who survived a gunshot to the head by members of the Taliban for speaking out on women’s right to education, told President Barack Obama in an Oval Office meeting on Friday that he should stop drone strikes in countries such as Pakistan.

In a statement released after the meeting, Yousafzai said that she told Obama that she is concerned about the effect of U.S. drone strikes in her country—a portion of the conversation that was omitted from White House statements so far.

“I [expressed] my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism,” Yousafzai said in a statement released by the Associated Press. “Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”

Yousafzai—the youngest ever nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize—was invited to the White House “for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan,” according to a White House statement.

Yousafzai also recently called on the U.S. and U.K. governments to end military attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan in an interview with BBC.

“The best way to solve problems and to fight against war is through dialogue,” she told BBC. “That’s not an issue for me, that’s the job of the government… and that’s also the job of America.”

“I have chosen to nominate U.S. Army Pfc Bradley Manning, for I can think of no one more deserving. His incredible disclosure of secret documents to Wikileaks helped end the Iraq War, and may have helped prevent further conflicts elsewhere.”Maguire explains how far-reaching Manning’s impact has been:

“While there is a legitimate and long-overdue movement for peace and non-violent reform in Syria, the worst acts of violence are being perpetrated by outside groups. Extremist groups from around the world have converged upon Syria, bent on turning this conflict into one of ideological hatred.

“In recent years this would have spelled an undeniable formula for United States intervention. However, the world has changed in the years since Manning’s whistleblowing — the Middle East especially. In Bahrain, Tunisia, Egypt, and now Turkey, advocates of democracy have joined together to fight against their own governments’ control of information, and used the free-flowing data of social media to help build enormously successful non-violent movements. Some activists of what has come to be known as the Arab Spring have even directly credited Bradley Manning,and the information he disclosed, as an inspiration for their struggles.

“. . . If not for whistleblower Bradley Manning, the world still might not know of how U.S. forces committed covert crimes in the name of spreading democracy in Iraq . . . Now, those who would support foreign intervention in the Middle East know that every action would be scrutinized under international human rights law. Clearly, this is for the best. International peacekeepers, as well as experts and civilians inside Syria, are nearly unanimous in their view that United States involvement would only worsen this conflict.”Won’t you add your name to the petition now?

Mairead Maguire adds: “Around the world, Manning is hailed as a peacemaker and a hero. His nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize is a reflection of this. Yet at his home in America, Manning stands trial for charges of espionage and ‘aiding the enemy’. This should not be considered a refutation of his candidacy — rather, he is in good company. Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi and Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo were each awarded the prize in recent years while imprisoned by their home countries.”

ROGER’S NOTE: THIS MUST BE THE VERY FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE THAT I HAVE PASSED ON A “CHAIN LETTER.” IT CAME TO ME FROM A TRUSTED FRIEND.

Irena Sendler

Died: May 12, 2008 (aged 98)Warsaw, Poland

During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.

She had an ulterior motive.Irena smuggled Jewish infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried.

She also carried a burlap sack in the back of her truck, for larger kids.

Irena kept a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.

The soldiers, of course, wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.Ultimately, she was caught, however, and the Nazi’s broke both of her legs and arms and beat her severely.

Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she had smuggled out,

in a glass jar that she buried under a tree in her back yard.

After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived and tried to reunite the family.

Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.In 2007 Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize. She was not selected.

Al Gore won, for a slide show on Global Warming. Later another politician,

Barack Obama, won for his work as a community organizer for ACORN.In MEMORIAM – 65 YEARS LATERI’m doing my small part by forwarding this message.

I hope you’ll consider doing the same.It is now more than 65 years since the Second World War in Europe ended.This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain,

In memory of the six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests

Who were murdered, massacred, raped, burned, starved and humiliated!Now, more than ever, with Iran , and others, claiming the HOLOCAUST to be ‘a myth’, It’s imperative to make sure the world never forgets,

Because there are others who would like to do it again.This e-mail is intended to reach 40 million people worldwide!Join us and be a link in the memorial chain and help us distribute it around the world.

Roger’s note: Shortly after he received it, I started a petition demanding that Obama return his Nobel Peace Prize. Few were willing to sign. Well, let’s not be too hard on Obama. On this side of the revolution, no one will ever ascend to the American presidency who will not act as lap-dog to the military-industrial complex. The US president is not, as often advertised, the leader of the free world, but rather the leader of the rapacious and bloody US Empire. What is so pernicious about President Obama is his hypocritical pose as a democrat and man of peace.

A simple twist of fate has set President Obama’s second Inaugural Address for January 21, the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

Obama made no mention of King during the Inauguration four years ago — but since then, in word and deed, the president has done much to distinguish himself from the man who said “I have a dream.”

After his speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, King went on to take great risks as a passionate advocate for peace.

After his Inaugural speech in January 2009, Obama has pursued policies that epitomize King’s grim warning in 1967: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”

But Obama has not ignored King’s anti-war legacy. On the contrary, the president has gone out of his way to distort and belittle it.

In his eleventh month as president — while escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, a process that tripled the American troop levels there — Obama traveled to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, he cast aspersions on the peace advocacy of another Nobel Peace laureate: Martin Luther King Jr.

The president struck a respectful tone as he whetted the rhetorical knife before twisting. “I know there’s nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naive — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King,” he said, just before swiftly implying that those two advocates of nonviolent direct action were, in fact, passive and naive. “I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” Obama added.

Moments later, he was straining to justify American warfare: past, present, future. “To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason,” Obama said. “I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.”

Then came the jingo pitch: “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

Crowing about the moral virtues of making war while accepting a peace prize might seem a bit odd, but Obama’s rhetoric was in sync with a key dictum from Orwell: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

Laboring to denigrate King’s anti-war past while boasting about Uncle Sam’s past (albeit acknowledging “mistakes,” a classic retrospective euphemism for carnage from the vantage point of perpetrators), Obama marshaled his oratory to foreshadow and justify the killing yet to come under his authority.

Two weeks before the start of Obama’s second term, the British daily The Guardian noted that “U.S. use of drones has soared during Obama’s time in office, with the White House authorizing attacks in at least four countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. It is estimated that the CIA and the U.S. military have undertaken more than 300 drone strikes and killed about 2,500 people.”

The newspaper reported that a former member of Obama’s “counter-terrorism group” during the 2008 campaign, Michael Boyle, says the White House is now understating the number of civilian deaths due to the drone strikes, with loosened standards for when and where to attack: “The consequences can be seen in the targeting of mosques or funeral processions that kill non-combatants and tear at the social fabric of the regions where they occur. No one really knows the number of deaths caused by drones in these distant, sometimes ungoverned, lands.”

Although Obama criticized the Bush-era “war on terror” several years ago, Boyle points out, President Obama “has been just as ruthless and indifferent to the rule of law as his predecessor.”

Boyle’s assessment — consistent with the conclusions of many other policy analysts — found the Obama administration’s use of drones is “encouraging a new arms race that will empower current and future rivals and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent.”

In recent weeks, more than 50,000 Americans have signed a petition to Ban Weaponized Drones from the World. The petition says that “weaponized drones are no more acceptable than land mines, cluster bombs or chemical weapons.” It calls for President Obama “to abandon the use of weaponized drones, and to abandon his ‘kill list’ program regardless of the technology employed.”

Count on lofty rhetoric from the Inaugural podium. The spirit of Dr. King will be elsewhere.

24-year-old accused of releasing classified documents to WikiLeaks

– Common Dreams staff

Three months before Bradley Manning is scheduled to face a court martial, and more than two years after his arrest, lawyers for 24-year-old Army Private First Class say the intelligence analyst accused of releasing classified documents to Wikileaks has already been punished for yet unproven charges, including violation of the Espionage Act and aiding the enemy.

A rally outside the gates of Fort Meade on Dec. 17, 2011, to bring media awareness to the growing movement supporting PFC Bradley Manning. At front, left to right, are political spokespeople attorney Kevin Zeese, LGBTQ activist Lt. Dan Choi and retired US Diplomat Col Ann Wright. Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg joined the group of supporters at the hearing later in the week. (Photo: Bradley Manning Support Network via Flickr)

Manning is accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of classified documents which were published on Wikileaks that show the killing of unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists by a US Apache helicopter in Iraq, McClatchy reports.

The exposed Baghdad attack left 12 dead. In a video, the American helicopter crew can be heard laughing and referring to Iraqi dead as “dead bastards.”

Manning is also accused of sharing the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs and a series of embarrassing US diplomatic cables, in violation of military regulations, which the website BradleyManning.org says “have illuminated such issues as the true number and cause of civilian casualties in Iraq, along with a number of human rights abuses by US-funded contractors and foreign militaries, and role that spying and bribes play in international diplomacy.”

Earlier this month, Manning acknowledged that he was the source of the documents as “an act of conscience,” and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He faces 22 charges and is scheduled for a court martial in February 2013.

But from July 2010 to April 2011, Manning was held in solitary confinement at the US marine corps Brig in Quantico, Virginia.

The Baltimore Sun reports today that Manning’s lawyers allege that during that time:

Manning was held in ‘the functional equivalent of solitary confinement: ‘Confined to a six-by-eight-foot cell, with no window or natural light, for more than 23 and a half hours each day. He was awakened at 5 a.m. each morning and required to remain awake until 10 p.m., his lawyers say. He was not permitted to lie on his bed or lean against the cell wall. He was not allowed to exercise in his cell.

If guards found him asleep during five-minute checks, they awakened him.

Lawyers argue that such “egregious” treatment of an as-yet-untried suspect, despite testimony by psychiatrists who said he presented no risk to himself and that the treatment was causing him psychological harm, is illegal pretrial punishment and violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice and US Constitution.

The British government and Amnesty International spoke out against his treatment, with Amnesty International calling conditions “unnecessarily severe and amount(ing) to inhumane treatment by US authorities.”

“Manning has not been convicted of any offense, but military authorities appear to be using all available means to punish him while in detention,” the human rights group said. “This undermines the United States’ commitment to the principle of the presumption of innocence.”

In July, UN torture investigator Juan Mendez accused the US government of harsh treatment of Manning that may amount to torture.

Since the Quantico brig was closed in December 2011, Manning has been in medium-security confinement in Fort Leavenworth, the Baltimore Sun reports.McClatchy reports that Dwight H. Sullivan, a former Marine Corps attorney who now teaches military law at George Washington University, says military law allows for the dismissal of charges against a suspect who is found to have been punished before trial— but such cases are rare.

Manning may begin testifying as a witness in pre-trial hearings as soon as Tuesday. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Probe: Has Nobel Peace Prize Lost Its Way?

– Common Dreams staff

Today marks the 2012 deadline for nominations for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, but as the prize committee meets this year to discuss what individual or group has “done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace,” they will be under heightened scrutiny to be sure their choice fulfills the original intent of its founder, Alfred Nobel.

The reason for the heightened pressure rests on an investigation by the Stockholm County Administrative Board of the committee’s recent choices prompted by ‘persistent complaints’ by author and peace researcher, Fredrik Heffermehl, and roundly criticized choices by the committee in recent years — most notably US President Barack Obama, a war commander governing over numerous military conflicts at the time he was awarded the auspicious “peace” prize in 2009.

* * *

Heffermehl, author of the book The Nobel Peace Prize: What Nobel Really Wanted and a Norwegian lawyer, argues that the Nobel committee has violated the terms of Alfred Nobel’s will, which established the prize. He states that for decades, the parties in the Norwegian parliament have misused the Nobel committee seats to reward party veterans lacking insight in the peace ideas that Nobel wished to support. Heffermehl writes that over half of the awards since 1946 have not conformed with the intention of Nobel, who wished to change the international system in order to end wars and armaments.

The Swedish inquiry responds to a complaint against mismanagement that I lodged last month. The Nobel Foundation has been asked to comment in particular on the secret private diaries of former committee chair Gunnar Jahn which indicate that no attention is paid to the directives in Nobel´s will. These diaries, [which were published for the first time by Heffermehl] show that Jahn repeatedly protested in vain against awards that ignored the intentions of Nobel. The diaries clearly demonstrate that the Norwegian awarding Committee already 50 years ago ceased to pay any regard to Nobel and what he wanted.

The Norwegian Parliament had already then taken over the Nobel award and started using it as their own. I have now struggled for four years to have the committee respect the rights of the intended recipients, but I’ve found that in Norway there is no interest in Alfred Nobel and what he wanted.

The Swedish inquiry also encourages the Board of the Nobel Foundation to comment on an article by a member of the Nobel family, Michael Nobel, who in an article last month in Aftenposten said that Norway may be deprived of control over the prize if the mismanagement continues.

“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” -Fredrik Heffermehl

Sweden Questions Nobel Peace Prize Selection Basis

…In [Heffermehl’s] view the last qualified peace prize winners were the United Nations and its then-secretary general, Kofi Annan, in 2001.

Heffermehl […] won the ear of Stockholm County Administrative Board, whose duties extend to making sure the country’s 7,300 registered foundations fulfill the wishes of their dead benefactors.

“Mr. Heffermehl has a couple of good arguments,” Mikael Wiman, the board’s attorney, told Reuters after he sent a letter this week to the Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation board seeking comment.

Heffermehl’s approval did not include Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), who won the prize jointly in 2007 for their work on climate change, and certainly not to Barack Obama, who won the prize in 2009 for “extraordinary efforts” in international diplomacy.

“Do you see Obama as a promoter of abolishing the military as a tool of international affairs?” Heffermehl asked rhetorically.

Nobel Peace Prize officials were facing a formal inquiry over accusations they have drifted away from the prize’s original selection criteria by choosing such winners as President Barack Obama, as the nomination deadline for the 2012 awards closed Wednesday. […]

If the Stockholm County Administrative Board, which supervises foundations in Sweden’s capital, finds that prize founder Alfred Nobel’s will is not being honored, it has the authority to suspend award decisions going back three years — though that would be unlikely and unprecedented, said Mikael Wiman, a legal expert working for the county.

Obama won in 2009, Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won in 2010, and last year the award was split between Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman of Yemen.

As the July 2011 deadline for Afghan troop withdrawal nears,
President Barack Obama is gearing up for another significant milestone,
the Nobel War Prize awards ceremony, which will be held in Oslo next
month.

Obama has been selected as this year’s winner of the first inaugural
prize to commemorate the world leader who has “best advanced the goals
of war and militarization across the globe,” amongst a notable cast of
runners-up that includes NATO’s head Anders Fogn Rasmussen, China’s
premier Wen Jiabao, and former President George W. Bush.

The selection committee includes a host of venerable war-makers in
their own right, including Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah
Saleh, and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi — each of whom will be honored in a
special category celebrating the “Leaders that Wage War on Their Own
People.”

Among Obama’s list of war accomplishments, the committee highlighted
Obama’s decision to double the number of troops and expand the number of
private contractors in Afghanistan, as well as his dramatic escalation
of drone strikes and targeted assassinations in Yemen and Pakistan.

According to one committee member, “Two years ago, we worried that
President Obama would rollback Bush administration policies and pursue a
peace agenda, but in fact he’s expanded the militaristic Bush approach
to counterterrorism. He’s managed to get the U.S. involved in three wars
in the Middle East, keep Guantanamo open, and dramatically expand the
use of covert CIA capture/kill operations across the globe. We could not
think of a more worthy candidate for this award.

” News this week that the CIA is building a secret military base in the Middle East had the committee buzzing with excitement.

One judge noted, “We applaud Obama for presiding over 865 military
bases abroad at a cost of over $102 billion annually. At a time when the
country is faltering from the economic crisis, Obama’s decision to
approve the construction of more bases deserves praise.”

Obama’s speechwriters are hard at work preparing his acceptance
remarks, and PolicyMic managed to obtain a preview of the speech from a
source inside the White House.

The president will begin by thanking congressional Democrats “for
campaigning in 2006 on the antiwar agenda, and then turning around once
in office and funding the war they claimed to oppose.”

He will also thank Congress for “stepping aside and allowing me to go
to war in Libya without Congressional approval and once again approving
the Patriot Act despite years of supposed opposition.”

Ceremony organizers carefully timed the event in order to nudge Obama
toward breaking his pledge to begin a significant troop withdrawal in
July — a course the president is strongly considering.

They are urging the president to permanently take the Nobel Peace
Prize down from his bookshelf and replace it with the war prize next
month.

__________

Extracted from Military Resistance, (formerly GI Special), the magazine of the Military Resistance Organization. See the next post for more information about the organization

When I saw that, I was going to ask how the NYT could possibly know that the people whose lives the U.S. just ended were “militants,” but then I read further in the article and it said this: “A government official in North Waziristan told Pakistani reporters that five children and four women were among the 23 who were killed.” So at least 9 of the 23 people we killed — at least — were presumably not “militants” at all, but rather innocent civilians (contrast how the NYT characterizes Libya’s attacks in its headlines: “Qaddafi Troops Fire Cluster Bombs Into Civilian Areas”).

Can someone who defends these drone attacks please identify the purpose? Is the idea that we’re going to keep dropping them until we kill all the “militants” in that area? We’ve been killing people in that area at a rapid clip for many, many years now, and we don’t seem to be much closer to extinguishing them. How many more do we have to kill before the eradication is complete?

Beyond that, isn’t it painfully obvious that however many “militants” we’re killing, we’re creating more and more all the time? How many family members, friends, neighbors and villagers of the “five children and four women” we just killed are now consumed with new levels of anti-American hatred? How many Pakistani adolescents who hear about these latest killings are now filled with an eagerness to become “militants”?

The NYT article dryly noted: “Friday’s attack could further fuel antidrone sentiment among the Pakistani public”; really, it could? It’s likely to fuel far more than mere “antidrone sentiment”; it’s certain to fuel more anti-American hatred: the primary driver of anti-American Terrorism. Isn’t that how you would react if a foreign country were sending flying robots over your town and continuously wiping out the lives of innocent women, children and men who are your fellow citizens? What conceivable rational purpose does this endless slaughter serve? Isn’t it obvious that the stated goal of all of this – to reduce the threat of Terrorism – is subverted rather than promoted by these actions?

Regarding the announcement yesterday that the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner was now deploying these same flying death robots to Libya, both The Washington Post‘s David Ignatius and The Atlantic‘s James Fallows make the case against that decision. In particular, Ignatius writes that “surely it’s likely that the goal was to kill Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi or other members of his inner circle.”

I don’t know if that is actually the purpose, though if Ignatius is good at anything , it’s faithfully conveying what military and intelligence officials tell him. If that is the goal, doesn’t that rather directly contradict Obama’s vow when explaining the reasons for our involvement in the war (after it started): “broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake.” It already seemed clear from the joint Op-Ed by Obama and the leaders of France and Britain — in which they pledged to continue “operations” until Gadaffi was gone — that this vow had been abandoned. But if we’re sending drones to target Libyan regime leaders for death, doesn’t it make it indisputably clear that the assurances Obama gave when involving the U.S. in this war have now been violated. And does that matter?

Finally, when the OLC released its rationale for why the President was permitted to involve the U.S in Libya without Congressional approval, its central claim was that — due the very limited nature of our involvement and the short duration — this does not “constitute[] a ‘war’ within the meaning of the Declaration of War Clause” (Adam Serwer has more on this reasoning). Now that our involvement has broadened to include drone attacks weeks into this conflict, with no end in sight, can we agree that the U.S. is now fighting a “war” and that this therefore requires Congressional approval?

* * * * *

A new NYT/CBS poll today finds that only 39% approve of Obama’s handling of Libya, while 45% disapprove (see p. 17). That’s what happens when a President starts a new war without any pretense of democratic debate, let alone citizenry consent through the Congress.